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Colorado flood: Ditch companies scramble to repair infrastructure

Most of the major damages will likely be prepared for when spring run-off comes

By Tony Kindelspire

Times-Call staff writer

Posted:
04/05/2014 06:36:42 PM MDT

Updated:
04/05/2014 09:35:15 PM MDT

The Rough & Ready/Palmerton diversion dam was wiped out by September's flood. Here, a front-end loader is shown reinforcing the new dam with rock. (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

About two miles up from the base of Left Hand Canyon, Terry Plummer pulls his truck off onto the gravel shoulder next to a dropoff and looks down at the construction crew working in the riverbed below.

Left Hand Creek has been diverted from its main channel by a temporary earthen dam with two 48-inch pipes running through the middle of it. That's so the workmen can rebuild the diversion dam and headgate that last September's flood obliterated.

"We have like 13 spots that we're working on, various levels of destruction, with this being the worst. This is the Allen's Lake diversion," said Plummer, vice president of maintenance and operations for the Left Hand Ditch Co. "Most everything was just buried in debris. ... The Allen's Lake diversion was just rolled up into a ball of concrete and steel."

Terry Plummer, vice president of maintenance and operations for the Left Hand Ditch Co., is shown last week near the Table Mountain/Boulder diversion, which had to be rebuilt following September's flooding. (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

In the high desert of the arid West, moving water around is big business. The cities and towns need the water for drinking and quality of life, and the farmers need it for their livelihoods. Irrigation ditches are the veins that deliver this life blood, and September's floods did tens of millions of dollars in damage to those ditches — from the Boulder Creek basin to the south up to the Cache La Poudre and Big and Little Thompson basins to the north.

Some of the most extensive damage occurred in the St. Vrain River and Left Hand Creek watersheds.

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Ditch companies control the water rights to irrigation ditches and are charged with maintaining them. The Left Hand Ditch Co. is typical of most such entities: it's privately held and owned by shareholders — in the case of Left Hand, 460 shareholders. Sixteen percent of its shares are owned by the Left Hand Water District and goes toward drinking water, and the rest goes to agriculture.

Ditches operate using diversion dams and headgates. The dams slow the water and back it up so it can then flow through the headgate, which is opened to let water through.

The Rough & Ready/Palmerton headgates in Lyons were completely wiped out by September's floods. They are on track to be completely rebuilt by May 1, according to Longmont officials. (Matthew Jonas / Longmont Times-Call)

In the Allen's Lake diversion both the dam and headgate were wiped out, and in the narrow riverbed of Left Hand Canyon, the only way to replace them is to divert the river, build half the structure, then move the river again and build the other half.

"We'll get that (side) done and then we'll move the river back over," Plummer said as he watched the construction crew pour concrete. "What we're doing is racing, we're racing the run-off."

"I would agree with Terry," said Dave Nettles, a division engineer for the Colorado Division of Water Resources. "It is, it has been, a race, certainly for folks with irrigation ditches."

Rain, not snow, is the concern

The Highland Ditch Co. headgate and diversion dam in Lyons — technically known as the Robert Schlagel diversion — are shown before September's flood The original structure was built in 1870.. (Courtesy of St. Vrain & Left Hand Water Conservancy District /)

The subject of spring run-off has been talked about almost since the floodwaters receded. The concern has been on multiple levels: The flood carried tons of tree limbs, sand and other debris and deposited it in river beds up and down the Front Range. As much as possible of that debris had to be removed to allow room for the extra water run-off will bring.

In some areas, the water flowed with such force that it re-routed itself. In some cases that has raised concerns for more flooding where there was none before.

And there's also a particular physical aspect of the ditches — most of them more than 100 years old — that has people concerned.

The Highland headgate is not even visible during the flood. (Courtesy of St. Vrain & Left Hand Water Conservancy District /)

"The clay soil swells up each season," Nettles explained about the soil that lines the ditches, keeping water in. "If (a ditch) is full of dirt, it just doesn't carry water. You have to clean out the dirt, and in the process you always might be cleaning out some of that silty material that helps seal the ditch."

Contrary to popular belief it's not the melting snow that has people like Ken Huson, the city of Longmont's water resources administrator, concerned.

"There's very little correlation between run-off and snowpack," said Huson.

Currently, snowpack in the mountains is running at 160 percent of normal, he said. But the biggest run-off in the past 25 years was in 1995, when the snowpack was just 73 percent of normal.

What was left of the Highland headgate after the flood. (Courtesy of St. Vrain & Left Hand Water Conservancy District /)

The reason was rain. In May 1995, it rained 7 inches, more than three times the 2.2-inch average for the month, according to records kept by Times-Call weather consultant Dave Larison.

More snowmelt extends the run-off, but it's not what causes flooding conditions, Huson said.

"It's the May and early June weather that we have to concern ourselves with," he said.

Last September's rainfall amount was 7.25 inches, an all-time Longmont record. The previous record? May 1995.

A scramble to get funds where they are needed

The Left Hand Ditch Co. has received about $3.3 million in emergency loans and $40,000 in grants from the Colorado Water Conservation Board. It has also applied for relief money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Plummer said.

Kirk Russell, the finance section chief for the CWCB, said his agency's board of directors originally came up with a figure of $15 million to set aside in an emergency fund to assist in rebuilding irrigation infrastructure, but soon realized that was far short of what was needed.

"After about a month of assessment it became apparent that $15 million wouldn't be enough," Russell said.

So the agency upped that amount to $40 million, which it has available through the revolving loan program it operates. The loans are being administered by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy Board.

"Of that $40 million, we have had requests of up to $19 million," Russell said.

According to the most recent CWCB numbers, the agency has issued 23 emergency loans in amounts ranging from $37,370 on the low end up to the Left Hand Ditch Co.'s $3.3 million. Russel said that he expects most of the emergency loans have already been distributed, although the CWCB board of directors will consider another $700,000 in May.

Last fall after the flood, the agency moved quickly to assist the ditch companies in their rebuilding efforts.

"It's a testament to the loan program and the way it was created," Russell said. "And staff-wise — we normally do about 15 loans a year. There were probably 15 loans we did in two months. It was chaos around here for a while."

The emergency loans come with no interest and no payments for three years, he said.

One of the largest natural disasters in Colorado history forced everyone to move fast — government agencies and private ditch companies alike.

He expects all repairs in the Left Hand watershed to be completed by May 1, Plummer said.

Not rebuilding was not an option

Sean Cronin, executive director of the St. Vrain & Left Hand Water Conservancy District, attended an emergency meeting of the Highland Ditch Co. in the days following the flood.

"Not repairing this is not an option," Cronin recalls hearing the shareholders — many of whom are farmers — saying in the meeting. "This is how we make our living."

Cronin said there are 94 ditches and reservoirs within the St. Vrain & Left Hand district, and of those 43 suffered some amount of damage, totaling about $18 million. Some, such as the Highland, were completely destroyed.

September's flood all but wiped out the Highland's diversion dam and headgate, which were built in 1870. What little remained after the water subsided was not repairable.

The Highland Ditch, the biggest in the St. Vrain basin, goes all the way to Milliken, primarily serving ag land but also providing some of the city of Longmont's drinking water.

The diversion dam and headgate were rebuilt at a cost of $750,000, according to Wade Gonzales, superintendent of the Highland Ditch Co.

The CWCB loaned the company just under $2 million for the rebuild, which has already been completed. The money also went to pay for repair to reservoirs the ditch serves

"Forty-thousand acres were affected by that structure," Gonzales said. "We can't dry up 40,000 acres — it's mind-boggling how many persons and livelihoods that affects."

Added Cronin: "Whether you're talking about the farmers market or whether you're talking about King Soopers, (agriculture) is a significant part of our local economy."

"Big Three" take a hit

The "Big Three" headgates, as far as Longmont is concerned — the Highland, the Oligarchy and the Rough & Ready/Palmerton — were all destroyed by the flood, according to Kevin Boden, environmental project specialist with the city of Longmont's Public Works and Natural Resources Department.

The Oligarchy, it should be noted, actually held up during the initial flood but then finally gave way the following Sunday during heavy rains.

All three either have been or will be repaired by May 1, Boden said.

The CWCB loaned about $1.8 million to the Rough & Ready and Palmerton ditch companies to get that dual headgate and the ditches repaired. The Oligarchy's emergency loan was about $1.3 million.

Nettles said that the state's Division of Water Resources has also felt the same sense of urgency to get repair work done as the farmers and the ditch companies have felt.

His agency is in charge of regulating how much water goes where, and many of its stream gauges were wiped out in the flood. Those gauges are vital to keeping track of what's going where, he said.

Nettles said that although the Poudre, Big Thompson and Boulder Creek watersheds all sustained some damage, none of them reached the "catastrophic" levels seen in the St. Vrain and Little Thompson watersheds.

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